If you’re serious about improving your skills as a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) practitioner, there are a few basic movements that you need to master.

These movements represent the core of BJJ training, and they are an essential part of many of the techniques you will be learning over the years.

It isn’t uncommon for people to liken BJJ to a language. Basic movements like bridging and shrimping are the words, techniques are sentences, while rolling on the mat is a conversation.

Just as is the case with any other language, if you aren’t familiar with the basic words or have a limited vocabulary, you are going to have a hard time putting sentences together.

Shrimping and bridging are two important words in the BJJ lexicon that you should be familiar with amongst other simple movements. These are essential BJJ movements that are used to sew all the techniques you learn together. When you train Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, it is important that you practice these movements, at the very least, as much as you practice techniques. The more you learn, the easier it is for you to realize just how much simple movements are woven into many techniques.

Simply performing these movements during warmups in class isn’t enough to cut it. You need to make sure you are properly practicing these movements. Even advanced students are constantly looking for ways to improve and refine their shrimping, bridging techniques and other simple movements.

Gripping is another essential part of BJJ training. You’re going to have a very hard time executing many BJJ techniques if you don’t understand how different grips work and how to properly grab limbs and such when on the mat. Gripping is so important, the term “hand fighting” is commonly used in the combat sports community as it often determines who gets the better of a given grappling exchange.

When you first start training BJJ, you won’t have the iron grip that some of the more advanced students have, but that will eventually change with time. Simply training BJJ regularly will drastically increase your grip strength, but you can speed things up by specifically working on your grip.

Something else you have to learn during your early days of BJJ training is how to grip things effectively. It’s not about holding on to things as tight as you can, but, rather, holding things tight enough so that your opponent cannot get away from you.

It’s also about knowing the best places to grab in the first place. Your grip won’t help you much if you do not know which part of your opponent’s body or gi is easiest to control with your grip. Grab onto the wrong thing, and you won’t have enough leverage to control your opponent.

Generally speaking, you want to grab the lapel, elbows, sleeves, and wrists for maximum leverage. You also need to learn how to use the right grip at the right times.